Women in growth companies - some data to illuminate the situation
Data on the characteristics and dynamics of small and mid-sized companies can be a bit thin. So, on International Women’s Day, we thought it might be interesting to share analysis from across two Catalysis databases. Much of that data is sufficiently deep to suggest insights that are probably reasonably representative of the wider mid-market. In certain areas, we need to recognise shallow data pools which risk giving the wrong impression. So, with some appropriate sprinkles of salt, what conclusions might we draw?
Women are in a clear minority at executive level in mid-market companies
Looking at the proportion of women in various roles in our leadership styles database (which contains just over 1,000 profiles), the only roles where there are as many women as men are HRDs and FCs. By contrast, fewer than 20% of those we have been asked to assess are women. Just 15% of FDs (or candidates to become FD) have been women; the figure is 12% for CEOs. The gap is greatest for CTOs where we have profiled just one woman out of 75 people in total. The figure for Chairs is probably suspect because we don’t systematically include them in the analysis part of our projects and we have certainly met some impressive female Chairs. But the real figure is probably still below 10%.
Doing the same analysis by industry sector also shows significant variations. Compared to the 19% overall female presence, women executives are more likely to be found in higher proportions in healthcare, education, and professional services (All of which could be characterised as people-centric sectors) but at notably lower levels in wholesale, TMT and manufacturing companies (where technology and products are more prominent). The figure for private equity is provocative but wrong: men represent a clear majority but there is a significant and growing minority of women, and we don’t collect enough data to be representative of the PE community.
Women executives generally have less career experience
Looking across about 900 profiles in our experience database, we can see that women, overall, bring lower levels of almost types of experience. That makes sense since amongst the middle-aged people who constitute the majority of executives we deal with, women are much more likely to have had their careers interrupted by child-raising responsibilities. Nonetheless, it is still striking that women are much less likely to have equivalent years of experience (compared with men) with P&L responsibility, senior team membership and equity ownership.
If we look at individual roles, that overall pattern repeats itself amongst FDs. But there is an interesting exception: CEOs. Female CEOs do not look less experienced overall than their male counterparts and even appear more experienced in certain areas. The smaller pool of women in our data means we need to be careful of placing too much weight on any conclusions. However, it does suggest that there are routes to gaining the same levels of career stripes.
Female and male leadership shows some interesting variations
Returning to our leadership styles database, the data suggests that role has a strong influence on leadership and personality: female FDs look more like male FDs than female CEOs, for example. However, within role categories, gender appears to manifest itself.
Taking FDs, for example, if we look at the dimensions where differences are greatest, we can spot some suggestive areas of variation between women and men. Female FDs present themselves as more likely to prefer cautious decisions, write well and focus on quality – but also to exhibit a more people-centric approach (cheerful, lively, encouraging, empathetic). By contrast, their male counterparts reckon they are more likely to use IT and numerical data, stay calm, meet their commitments punctually, develop strategies and concepts, and stay calm. As always with psychometrics, we cannot be 100% sure that these differences are objectively true because people sometimes perceive themselves incorrectly or want to present themselves in a certain way.
Look then at CEOs. Here we can observe that differences appear less obviously stereotypically gendered. The female CEOs scores suggest that, compared to male CEOs, they favour learning new things, developing concepts, deploying logic, accepting change and challenge, making things happen and are attentive to detail. Making a good first impression and establishing rapport could be seen as more characteristically female – but then we may also note that male CEOs reckon they are more likely to become the centre of attention and be more trusting. It is true that male CEOs rate themselves more highly on competitiveness and negotiation, using IT and numbers, getting into arguments and resolving them, and wanting to coordinate others – more stereotypically male in form.
We won’t try to synthesise the data and insights into a coherent argument at this stage. However, as we accumulate more data points and information on executive performance, we would hope to offer more food for thought in future years. For now, we can observe that, for the most part, the world of growth companies suggests quite different experiences of women than their male counterparts, most notably in the likelihood of reaching the most senior executive positions.
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